The program has changed at short notice: instead of “Boris Brovtsyn – violin & Claudio Bohorquez – cello play Zoltán Kodály – Duo for violin and cello op 7.” Claudio Bohorquez will play Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cello Suite No. 3 in C major, BWV 1009.

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CLAUDIO BOHORQUEZ – CELLO

Johann Sebastian Bach – Cellosuite Nr. 3 C-Dur, BWV 1009

1. Prélude. Presto
2. Allemande. Allegro
3. Courante. Allegro
4. Sarabande. Largo
5. Bourrée I und II
7. Gigue. Allegro

“The princely court chapel in the Anhalt town of Köthen near Halle counted two important cellists among its members around 1720. Christian Bernhard Linigke, the orchestra’s principal cellist, and Christian Ferdinand Abel, its gambist, who was also “useful” as a violinist and cellist, ranked right at the top of the princely payroll ? directly after the concertmaster and the court conductor, who was none other than Johann Sebastian Bach. Payrolls are unmistakable indicators of the status of the musicians and their instruments, and it can therefore be assumed that the cello played a prominent role in Köthen, not only in the basso continuo as the omnipresent support of the princely musica da camera, but also as a soloist, as the Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 3 and 6 also prove.

We would like to know more about how Bach developed the idea of his 6 Suites a Violoncello solo senza Basso together with his two cellists from Köthen and slowly allowed it to mature. There was plenty of time and inspiration for this under the “music-loving and music-knowing prince” Leopold von Anhalt-Köthen. There were also opportunities to perform the pieces, for example during the prince’s spa trips to Carlsbad in Bohemia, where he was accompanied by his “chamber musicians” Linigke and Abel and his court conductor. It must be left to the reader’s imagination to imagine further details of the early performance history and impact of Bach’s cello suites, as the surviving music sources are, as is so often the case with Bach, the only surviving material from the period in which the works were composed. There is nothing to suggest that the six suites caused a sensation even then or that they would have attained a similar status among cellists as they enjoy today.

Despite many predecessors in the field of solo cello music, it is astonishing to see the consistency with which Bach explored the possibilities of the instrument and the genre in his six suites. One can confidently assume that Bach himself took up the cello. The range of technical demands extends from the effects of the Italian violin school to borrowings from the French viola da gamba style and echoes of the “Polish-Hanakic” style with which German composers imitated the rustic art of Polish tavern violinists.

In no other suite cycle did Bach impose such formal and stylistic restrictions on himself as in the cello suites. They all have the same form: a prelude is followed by the four usual suite movements Allemande, Courante, Sarabande and Gigue; the latter is preceded by a pair of so-called galanteries. The variations in form and variety of expression within this unchanging framework surpass the richness of form in Zelenka’s sonatas many times over, and that on the mere four strings of a single instrument.
THE THIRD SUITE in C major, BWV 1009, is the most brilliant of the cycle. The prelude explores the possibilities of runs and broken triads with never-ending inventiveness – in the style of an animated allegro movement, very similar to the Preludio of the E major partita for solo violin. The captivating drama of this movement arises from the harmonic deviations that gradually creep into the initially radiant C major. Towards the end, they lead to dramatic chordal fingerings

Allemande and Courante are then demonstratively monophonic, so to speak. The former is gently kept on the move by a gallant anapaest figure, while the latter is cleverly “Italianized” by alternating between broken triads in staccato and short legato slurs. While the Sarabande returns to the pathetic harmony of the Prelude, the two Bourrée movements are busy and uncomplicated. The Gigue rounds off the suite perfectly, as it not only picks up on the molle intricacies of the Prelude and Sarabande, but also develops a similarly bizarre sound world with the help of drone basses and bariolage effects. The model here was Telemann’s “Polish-Hanakian” style, which lends this finale a burlesque quality.”
Karl Böhmer, 2003

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TRANSFIGURED LOFT
Boris Brovtsyn and Lucas Barr – Violine
Mercea Mocanita and Gareth Lubbe – Viola
Claudio Bohorquez and Abel Selaocoe – Cello

Programm:
Peter Illjitsch Tschaikowsky (1840 – 1893): Souvenir de Florence für Streichsextett
Hayden Chisholm (1975) „Kiuchi“ für Streichsextett und Stimme
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) Verklärte Nacht op.4 für Streichsextett

The performance of “Verklärte Nacht” for string sextet by Arnold Schönberg is at the heart of this year’s festival. The string ensemble presented here can otherwise only be heard in this quality in the major concert halls. Some of the musicians were already guests or musicians at LOFT during their studies in Cologne – now they are all active as soloists, professors or musicians in large orchestras.

Gareth Lubbe (*1976 in Johannesburg), debut as a violinist with orchestra at the age of 9, later concerts as a pianist with the South African Radio Symphony Orchestra and conductor of the Johannesburg Symphony Orchestra. 1995-2001 studied violin and chamber music with the Alban Berg Quartet in Cologne. 2006 and 2007 solo viola player in the Royal Flemish Philharmonic Orchestra in Antwerp under Phillippe Herreweghe, then solo viola player in the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig and lecturer in viola at the conservatory there. This was followed by an invitation from the Mahler Chamber Orchestra as principal violist. Professor of viola at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen since 2013. As an acclaimed overtone singer, Gareth Lubbe performs worldwide and leads workshops.

Claudio Bohórquez (*1976 in Gifhorn), Peruvian-Uruguayan-born cellist. After studying in Cologne and Berlin, he enjoyed early success at international competitions (e.g. Tchaikovsky Youth Competition in Moscow and Rostropovich Competition in Paris). 1st prize at the International Pablo Casals Cello Competition of the Kronberg Academy in Taunus in 2000. Winning the International Music Competition in Geneva marked the beginning of his career as a soloist. Since 2003 guest professor at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music Berlin, 5-year professorship at the Stuttgart University of Music, recently professorship at his “home” Hanns Eisler Academy of Music (winter semester 2016/17). Performances with almost all German radio orchestras as well as renowned international orchestras (including the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic, the Russian National Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic).

South African cellist Abel Selaocoe (24) is a shooting star and can already look back on an impressive solo career in South Africa, where he has performed with the Johannesburg, Kwa Zulu Natal and Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestras, among others. After graduating from St Johns College in Johannesburg, he was awarded scholarships to all the Royal Colleges in the United Kingdom and chose the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. Abel already has a firm place in the chamber music scene there: he made his debut with the Torre String Quartet and toured with the Zelkova String Quartet and the Quartet of Peace. His passion for improvised and world music eventually led to the formation of the Jam Sandwich Project: a global-folk-fusion quintet that has performed successfully throughout the UK, from the BBC Proms to the Ulverston International Festival to several BBC Radio 3 broadcasts.
Abel regularly collaborates with African and jazz musicians. Abel’s awards include first prize in the Phillip H Moor Competition (South Africa), the Sir John Barbarolli Prize (UK), the Gold Medal of the Royal Northern College of Music Concerto Prize, and the John Hosier and Biddy Baxter Award under the patronage of Sir Simon Rattle.

Boris Brovtsyn (*1977 in Moskau) studied at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory with Maya Glezarova. Graduated with honors in 1999, winner of several international competitions, including Georg Kulenkampf (1994, Cologne), Transnet (1996, Pretoria) and Yehudi Menuhin (1998). 1998 British debut with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Rumon Gamba, 2000 continued his artistic training with David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. In 2004 he won the Gold Medal, the highest award of this institute, joining the illustrious list of previous prizewinners such as Jacqueline du Pré, Tasmin Little and Bryn Terfel. He achieved further success by winning the Reuters Prize (2001) and the Tibor Varga Violin Competition (2002).

Mircea Mocanita was born in Romania in 1979 and received his first violin lessons at the age of 6. As an enthusiastic chamber musician, he also took up the viola at an early age. Consequently, he studied violin in Germany with Prof. Petru Munteanu and Prof. Elisabeth Weber as well as viola with Prof. Karin Wolf and, as a member of the Trio Allegra, chamber music with Prof. Inge-Susann Römhild. He also received lessons from Prof. Walter Levin, Prof. Shmuel Ashkenasi, the Artemis Quartet, Leon Spierer, Lynn Harrell and Alain Meiner. He has performed in Switzerland, Scandinavia, Corsica, at the Usedom Music Festival, the Kultursommer Hohenlohe, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival and the Järvi Festival in Estonia. He has made numerous radio and television recordings for NDR. From 2010 to 2014, Mircea Mocanita was a violinist in the WDR Cologne Radio Orchestra. He further refined his viola playing in collaboration with Máté Szücs (solo viola of the Berliner Philharmoniker) and has been a violist in the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne since 2014.

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DOHA
Claudio Bohorquez – cello
Gareth Lubbe – Viola, Obertongesang
Hayden Chisholm – Saxophon, Obertongesang

The top soloists of the improvisation trio DOHA (a traditional Buddhist offering) got to know each other during their studies in Cologne. Gareth Lubbe has been a guest of PLUSHMUSIC several times. DOHA has performed successfully in the USA and Europe. In 2004 they recorded the album of the same name on a trip to the Great Stupa of Dharmakaya at the Shambala Mountain Center in the Rocky Mountains.

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